Lasers are an established treatment for numerous ophthalmic pathologies and disorders. The use of lasers, however, requires precise beam size and accurate placement during surgery to prevent damage to surrounding tissues and sufficient exposure to the affected area. Thus, surgical pre-planning is often conducted to ensure accuracy and treatment of the proper tissues.
To assist in pre-planning, physicians often obtain a pre-surgical image, such as fluoroscein image, of the pertinent ocular structure, for example, the eye retina. Utilizing the pre-surgical image, one or more physicians can formulate a surgical plan for treatment, which usually includes the placement of one or more fiducial marks. Such fiducial marks aid the physician in orienting devices and tissues during surgery. During actual surgical treatment, a slit lamp, or other optical viewing device, is used to observe the pertinent ocular structure while administering treatment.
Frequently, a slit lamp, or other optical viewing device, integrated with a mechanically- or computer-controllable laser, is used to observe the eye structure(s) in real-time and administer laser treatment. During such procedures, a physician often refers to the pre-surgical image and the associated fiducial marks to correlate points in the current view of the eye structure(s) to guide the laser pointer or “aiming dot.” This process of correlation usually requires a physician to repeatedly refer to the pre-surgical image and the image observed by the optical viewing device. The need for a physician to direct attention towards more than one image during a procedure can result in errors, including treating the wrong area, insufficient treatment of an area, or missing a target.
There exists a need to correlate one or more pre-surgical tissue or structure images with real-time tissue or structure images that does not require a physician to separately view or monitor two or more images. The ability to correlate images and reduce or eliminate the need for physicians to view or monitor more than one image can increase surgical accuracy and reduce surgery time.